Eyes on Ministry of Education in fresh recruitment of teachers
Tuesday December 15 2020
Primary pupils sitting a national exam in Kigali. PHOTO | File
The Ministry of Education is considering recruiting teachers to fill up thousands of vacant teaching positions in schools that reopened in November, Rwanda Today has learnt.
The formal recruitment over the past months was marred by mass exam failures and graft allegations both in marking and placement of candidates.
Rwanda Today learnt that the ministry resorted to direct recruitment, a process that would see all the needed teachers handpicked based on applicants’ academic performance.
Several applicants confirmed they were required to submit college transcripts but had no clear details on how the recruitment would work even as the ministry officials confirmed they had secured authorisation from the public service commission to do so.
The public service commission executive secretary Angelina Muganza was non-committal on the development, saying she needed to liaise with her counterparts handling such requests and the ministry of education.
She, however, said the modalities of recruitment at the ministry could be backed by a recent presidential order that allowed institutions to recruit without passing through competition.
The new presidential order dated December 03, 2020 relating to recruitment of civil servants provides for direct recruitment in case of lack of candidates who fulfill a profile for a vacant position for three consecutive advertisements.
It is however subject to approval by the public service and labour minister after consultations.
Official details show that due to mass exam failures by candidates during successive recruitments, the Ministry of Education struggled to fill over 7,000 vacant teaching positions since January this year.
The numbers of vacancies rose steeply to 28,748 with the ongoing massive expansion of primary, secondary and TVET school infrastructure across the country in preparation for the gradual reopening in November.
Investigations
However, as schools re-opened, the placement of over 10,000 successful candidates was delayed pending investigations into graft allegations that marred previous recruitments under supervision of Rwanda Education Board (REB) and Districts.
So far, some education docket officials and scores of candidates were under investigation in connection with soliciting, receiving or giving bribes to manipulate results of the recruitment.
Thierry Murangira, acting spokesperson of Rwanda Investigation Bureau (RIB) told Rwanda Today that apart from one arrest involving a Rwanda Education Board (REB) officer on December 1 and three candidates afterward, the agency carried on investigations of other culprits.
“I cannot discuss the details of who at the moment when investigations are still ongoing,” he said.
The Prime Minister’s office had on November 2 suspended senior REB officials over failure to properly manage and coordinate the ongoing teacher recruitment process. It was however unclear how long the suspension would last and whether they were equally being investigated.
When asked for a comment, the Prime Minister’s office referred Rwanda Today to the ministry of education whose team since took up the recruitment process and vowed to look into the malpractices.
The latter had however not responded to our queries by press time.
Meanwhile, Rwanda Today established that learners are at the receiving end of the ongoing recruitment deadlock s schools await placement of missing teachers for some subjects.